Topical items and views on the impact of digitisation on publishing and its content and the issues that make the news. This blog follows the report 'Brave New World',
(http://www.ewidgetsonline.com/vcil/bravenewworld.html ), published by the Booksellers Association of the UK and Ireland and authored by Martyn Daniels. The views and comments expressed are those of the author.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

How to Grow a Digital Repository

Some do it openly scan and ask questions later, others walk the streets and cut the commercial deals to acquire files, some go after print on demand files and now Amazon appears to have found another trick to grow a digital repository by stealth.

The announcement this last week that Amazon is looking for all new titles to be placed in their 'Search Inside The Book' (SITB) program some weeks before publication would on the surface appear sensible and one to pursue. After all it would let the consumer see and sample the book ahead of publication and also increase the probability that the correct sample is there on the day of release. So why would it raise our eyebrows?

Well to Search inside the Book would be asking all publishers to upload the PDF of the title. Not part of the book but the book and probably a full text searchable PDF which they should have at that stage. That is principle is a heartbeat away from an ebook in many flavours and why not let Amazon convert it to a full ebook for free as part of the deal. Obviously the rendition of the digital ebook would be effectively exclusive to Amazon and other swould have to pay to convert it again but Amazon could kill two birds with one stone and get ebooks available on the release date and also get marketing usage of them in advance of publication.

Now we may well be jumping the gun and making two and two equal 5 but it certainly makes a lot of sense to us.

About Me

Before entering publishing I worked for many years as a Senior Executive in blue chip organisations in the retail, oil and automotive sectors. My publishing induction was initially as Director of Strategic Development at VISTA. There I was responsible for, and a contributor to, their highly acclaimed ‘Publishing in the 21st Century’ research series, the primary creator behind publishing services PubEasy and ‘batch.co.uk’, the initiator of the development of new Front Office systems to support publishers. In 2006 I joined Value Chain International(VCIL) initially as VP Marketing, Media and Publishing before becoming their President in 2009. In July 2011 the company's operations were acquired by Syncordia. I hold two non executive positions with publishing industry players Bibliophile Ltd and Haven Group and currently setting up Read Petite a service focused on providing digital short form material online via subscription.
Email mdaniels@opus57.co.uk